Episode I: Balance of the Force, Session 2

Session 2 of the "Prequels as we see it" campaign started off with the ship's arrival on Alderaan. There, the group is met on the landing platform by an honor guard, as well as Bail Organa himself. Organa is young, handsome, and charismatic, a natural leader if there ever was one. He thanks Janos Creel for completing his mission, and introduces himself to each of the other characters. Anakin is awestruck by the beauty of Alderaan, and amazed at Bail Organa's hospitality. After all, Anakin has just recently gone from a street rat on Chathos to being welcomed into a royal palace by a Prince of Alderaan. BL3K decides to stay on the ship and continue repairs, but sends R2-D2 with Janos in case he needs droid assistance.

Organa leads the characters into the palace and to a banquet chamber, where a feast has been laid out for them. At the head of the table sits the strikingly beautiful Mina Organa, Bail's wife, who glides across the floor to greet their new guests. She is a model of stately grace with each guest, except Anakin, to whom she is far warmer than a married woman should be. However, since her husband is deep in conversation with Kane Starkiller about the state of Hapan politics, she manages to embarrass young Skywalker and hints at more to come. As the group sits down to a meal, with Princess Mina giving Anakin coy looks across the table, a newcome joins them: another Jedi Knight, Alana Lars. Alana is a handsome woman who appears to be in her mid-thirties, yet unlike the disciplined-yet-sarcastic Obi-Wan, she is aggressive and unpredictable. Mere seconds after Bail Organa introduces her, Alana uses the Force to hurl platters of fruit across the table at Kane, Obi-Wan, and Anakin. While Kane and Obi-Wan use the Force to stop themselves from being pelted with fruit, Anakin has no such training, and is quickly dripping with the food that moments before sat on the table. This causes quite a commotion as Princess Mina comes to Anakin's side, Bail Organa leaps up and calls for their protocol droid, C-3PO, to have clean clothes prepared, while Obi-Wan and Alana exchange some verbal sparring about the incident. It's clear that Alana also senses the immense potential in Anakin, and is pushing Obi-Wan, Kane, and Anakin on why he is not being trained. As Princess Mina leads Anakin away to get him some clean clothes (accompanied by Obi-Wan, who has long since sensed the princess's interest in young Skywalker), Kane manages to convince Alana to be seated and cause no more trouble (though Alana does get a few jabs in at Kane, reminding him who is the Jedi Knight and who is the apprentice).

Princess Mina lead Anakin to a secluded dressing room and teases him while he changes into an outfit more suited to a Royal Palace than the ghettos of Chathos, under Obi-Wan's watchful eye. Once they return, Bail Organa begins telling the group the details of why he summoned them. Republic Intelligence has learned that a confederacy of rebellious alien worlds is forming, which threatens to transform the brushfire conflicts that are currently scattered across the Mid-Rim into a full-scale galactic war. A group of conspirators from several different alien worlds is meeting at a secret location in two days' time to discuss the terms of their confederacy, and Organa wants the group to escort his wife, Mina, to that meeting. Organa's own spies have been spreading counterintelligence over the past few weeks, planting the seeds of the lie that unlike her loyal husband Bail, Princess Mina holds no loyalty to the Republic, and is willing to be a human spy in the halls of Republic power. The mission is to escort Princess Mina to a rogue comet, the interior of which has been converted into a shadowport, where she will meet with the conspirators and then report back with her findings.

Once Obi-Wan has agreed to lead this mission, accepting the fact that Alana will also be coming along, Bail offers the group access to whatever weapons and equipment they might need. In addition, he offers to furnish both Anakin and Janos with state-of-the-art starfighters, the brand-new Z-95 Headhunter; both fighters have been modified with hyperdrives and astromech sockets, so they will be able to use them to fly escort for the Star Phoenix on this mission.

Zythe, the Falleen diplomat, has been quiet through most of the dinner, and at this points asks if she could have access to a secure hypercomm transmitter so she can report back to her masters in the diplomatic corps. Ever the gracious host, Organa agrees, but asks his wife to escort the diplomat to the communications center, choosing to stay behind and confer with the Jedi about the upcoming mission. At first, Princess Mina is all diplomatic iciness to Zythe, but the Falleen begins using her pheromones to affect the princess's emotions. By the time they reach the communications center, Princess Mina has warmed to Zythe, and is showing her some of the same affection she showed young Anakin earlier. Several minutes later, as Zythe is using the communications equipment, Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi arrive; Obi-Wan is going to try to send a message to the Jedi Master who trained him, the hermit called Yoda, requesting that Yoda take on Anakin Skywalker as an apprentice before Alana Lars manages to convince the boy to accept her as his master (at this point, an unlikely event, given how aggressive she has been toward Skywalker). As Bail Organa leads his wife away, Obi-Wan sees Zythe leave the hypercomm room, and then slips inside to send his own message.

Not long after, Anakin Skywalker, who has been working on his own pilot preferences and submitting them to Organa's technicians, hears a chime at his door. No sooner does he open it when Mina Organa, still flush from the pheremones from her encounter with Zythe, pushes her way into the room and flings herself into a kiss with young Skywalker. Lucas-wipe away...leaving the rest to your imagination.

The following morning, the characters emerge from the palace to find that BL3K, with the assistance of Alderaan's finest ship technicians, have fully repaired the Star Phoenix and have it ready to go. As promised, the two brand-new Z-95 Headhunters are fueled up and waiting on nearby platforms, complete with the customized paint schemes requested by Janos and Anakin. Anakin is also provided with a new astromech droid (so new that its first activation was this morning), while Janos find R2-D2 being loaded into his starfighter. A brief conversation with the techs reveals that they are fitting R2 into the droid socket "as per Janos's instructions;" once Janos is in the cockpit, R2 confesses he forged the request, because he knew that Janos needed his assistance more than Anakin did.

Before leaving, Alana once again tells Anakin that learning the ways of the Force is the only way to reach his full potential, then boards the Star Phoenix. Obi-Wan and Kane have a brief discussion about keeping an eye on Alana, then board the ship as well. As the trio of ships blasts off from Alderaan, the voice of Bail Organa echoes over their comlinks. "May the Force be with you."